KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE
Trash as Material
Tuesday, 11 November 2025, 6PM EST (2300 UTC) on Zoom
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In October 2025, Kolaj Institute opened an inquiry into Trash as Material. We brought together six artists in New Orleans to visit The Green Project and learn about how they process unwanted building materials and waste paint. They heard from New Orleans artist Jill Stoll about her “Lost Women” series and how she makes large woven artworks using post-consumer cardboard waste. The artists made artwork that is part of the exhibition, “Trash as Material” at Kolaj Institute Gallery 25 October to 29 November 2025.
During this edition of Kolaj LIVE Online, we will hear from some of the artists in the exhibition. Johanna Merfeld (Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA) will speak about how she came to use reclaimed corrugated cardboard from the New Orleans Healing Center and rework it into topographical maps. Lauren Crasco (San Francisco, California, USA) will speak about what she learned processing oyster shells collected from St. Roch Market and using them in the landscape assemblage, Cultch: Estuary. Lindsay M Walker (Houston, Texas, USA) will speak about how she made trash assemblages in every color of the rainbow to speak about the current political environment queer people are living in. Lance Rothstein (Clearwater, Florida, USA) will speak about his practice of collecting litter when he travels and using that to make collage. He wrote, “I find my work to be an archaeology of sorts. I’m constantly picking up and analyzing the remnants left behind by other people and reassembling them to make new relationships.”
Exhibition Curator and Kolaj Institute director Ric Kasini Kadour will speak about Trash as Materials project and how artists “are asking us to think deeply about the Trash in our lives, how it came to be, and what happens after we discard it,” He wrote, “There is something magical about taking a piece of trash and turning it into a thing of beauty or intrigue. Perhaps, if we can learn to perform that magic with Trash, then we can perform it with other things in our world as well.”
ABOUT THE TRASH AS MATERIAL VIRTUAL ARTIST RESIDENCY: 25 November-16 December 2025
Final Deadline to Apply: Sunday, 16 November 2025. In the post-use life of materials, what role do collage artists play? And what happens when collage artists use trash as material? Taking the premise that Trash is not simply a material, but an idea, artists will virtually assemble to explore art made with or about Trash. Themes that have already emerged through Kolaj Institute’s inquiry into this subject have included Trash as Archeology; the role of labor; litter and other street Trash; food waste; the history of sanitation; picking and hoarding; class, race, and questions of social justice; Trash and place; planned obsolescence; e-waste; and how to develop relationships with sources of particular Trash material and then physically process Trash into art materials. In this residency, artists will hear about these themes; about how artists made art about them; and identify new themes. Learn more HERE.
ABOUT KOLAJ LIVE ONLINE
Kolaj LIVE Online is a series of virtual programs in the form of forums, panels, workshops, artist talks, studio visits, and other activities that allow people to come together, learn and talk about collage, and connect in real time to the collage community. Our goal is to bring the community together in a spirit of mutual support and fellowship. Kolaj LIVE Online manifests Kolaj Magazine and Kolaj Institute by bringing together artists, curators, and writers to share ideas that deepen our understanding of collage as a medium, a genre, a community, and a 21st century movement. Learn more at the SERIES WEBSITE.